Aap! - Alternative Advertising Possibilities

Well at least according to research that appears in June’s Journal of Consumer Research. The research paper “An Examination of Different Explanations for the Mere Exposure Effect” concludes that repeated exposure to a product via banner ads generates a positive feeling towards that product.

The research is based on previous experiments that revealed the repeated exposure to a stimulus, even one that is barely perceptible will lead to the viewer developing positive feelings and thoughts to an otherwise neutral object. These feelings can include a liking or more subjective and complex associations such as “fame, truth, duration, loudness, stimulus brightness and darkness.”

The authors hypothesized that banner ads should work in a similar manner, given that “most viewers pay minimal attention to banner ads.”

In an controlled setting, the researchers asked students to read a multipage essay under the assumption that they’d be answering questions on the essay’s content. Instead the students were quizzed about a make believe brand of camera that appears in banner ads on the the essay’s pages. Different pools of students were exposed to the banner ads zero, five, or 20 times.

Upon reading the essay when students were asked about their negative feelings towards the brand, the number of exposures made absolutely no difference. “In contrast, those students asked about their positive feelings towards the brand saw those feelings increase in a linear fashion based on the number of exposures. In fact, the authors noted that the positive vibes still appeared to be going up after 20 exposures, leading them to wonder where this effect might start leveling off.

“There are apparently two models competing to explain this phenomenon. The first proposes that people will more readily assign positive properties to something that they can remember more readily. The second suggests that the processing of even minimal exposures can create an actual positive evaluation (for example, the conclusion that the item is not a threat). That positive affect then influences future evaluations.”

Read the whole article @ JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH

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